Companies and other large entities increasingly rely on distributed computing where many user terminals connect to one or more servers that are centrally located. These locations called “data centers” may be facilities owned by the company or may be supplied by a third-party. These data centers house not only computers, but may also have persistent connections to the Internet and thus, conveniently house networking equipment such as switches and routers. Web servers and other servers that need to be network accessible are often housed in data centers. Where a third-party owns the data center, the entity in question rents a “cage” or enclosure that has racks upon which assembled/standalone units, such as computers and routers, can be installed. The entity may also simply lease the units that are rack-mountable from the third-party. In any case, the data center is usually divided into a number of predefined areas, including a shipping/docking area, assembly area, and area where enclosures and their constituent racks are kept.
Typically, the business process of installing and configuring new computer or networking systems involves a series of independent stages. First, based on determined requirements, components of the systems are ordered through a vendor or supplier. Once the components for these systems are received, inventory logs the “asset” tag for the component which identifies it for future reconciliation/audits. While the order for the components themselves may identify a number of attributes that each component should have (i.e. amount of memory, number of ports, model number etc.), the inventory systems often do not, and may only be concerned with the fact that the item was in fact received, and what the serial number or other distinguishing identifier is. Conventional asset records track accounting information such as depreciation, but not other attribute information.
Once a component or set of components is received it is installed in the data center. Installation and assembly of components that make up a deployable “asset” is not typically performed by those employed in the receiving/warehousing department or by those who track inventory. After the component is physically assembled or installed, it will need to attain a “soft” configuration. The soft configuration includes attributes such as the IP (Internet Protocol) address, operating environment and so on. This soft configuration information frequently depends upon the attributes of the component. For instance, when installing software applications on a computing system asset (“compute node”), the operating system image to be deployed may depend on the size of the disk in the asset. Similarly, the MAC (Media Access Control) address of the network interface card may be needed to give the asset a correct IP address. The current environment relies on highly skilled employees for all aspects of component assembly and configuration. Because such skilled workers are in short supply, the assembly and configuration of new components in a data center can take weeks.
The management system is the vehicle and charge of the administrative or Information Technology (IT) departments within a large entity such as a corporation. The management system must identify, once products are received, what they consist of, and how to configure or install them. This information must be either discovered by the management system or re-entered into the management system by the skilled workers who configure and install the component. As is often the case, the skilled assembler must take the received components and inspect/test them to find out its attributes and configuration because the original order data and the received physical component cannot be easily correlated.
There is thus needed a more efficient configuration process that requires less use of skilled workers and increases the reliability of the configuration job and time-to-deployment of components.